Replies

1. 
   jonsherryl | Mar 14, 2004 06:35pm | #1

   In my experience, the first and foremost issue in getting a good finish on pine is to used the right pine. The pines divide into two major groups: the yellow pines and the white pines. The yellow pines tend to have a more abrupt transition between earlywood and latewood. Because the earlywood is extremely soft and absorbent, while the latewood is much denser, when a dark stain is applied to the raw wood, the earlywood sucks it up while the latewood sheds it. This heightens the contast of the figure and tends to make it too bold. The white pines (either eastern white; Pinus strobus, or western white; Pinus monticola) will accept a dark stain and still present an attractively mellow figure.

   There are several "cures" for helping to make the yellow pines (like ponderosa or even the Southern Yellow Pines) accept stains more uniformly. One crude way is to stop the final sanding at a slightly coarser grit (100 grit) which leaves fine grooves in the wood that capture the stain's pigment and help to mask the contrast. It works, but on close examination the scoring of the wood is obvious.

   The second technique (the one you've mentioned) is to apply a wash coat of shellac prior to staining. With this method a diluted coat of shellac (1LB cut or less) is applied to the raw wood, allowed to dry and then lightly sanded prior to applying the stain. The shellac penetrates the soft, earlywood tissue more deeply than it does the latewood, so that once the wood is lightly sanded, the shellac is mostly removed from the latewood and this makes the surface more uniform in terms of the amount of stain it will accept. The downside to this technique is that the wash coat tends to make it more difficult to achieve a truly dark color...but for moderate tones it works very well.

   The third technique is to modify the high contrast in the wood's figure by using a varnish stain for the final top coats. In other words, stain the wood using either of the above methods and then darken it and mellow out the contast with a varnish that contains some pigment which remains uniformly distributed in the film of the top coat(s). The downside here is that too many coats of a heavily pigmented varnish stain begins to mask the wood's figure, giving it an almost painted look.

   The purpose of a shellac barrier coat (a coat of heavier shellac; 2LB cut or higher, applied after the stain) is to seal in the wood's extractives. This is most important with respect to sealing the knots and end grain so that the wood's resins will not eventually bleed through the final finish. However, it also serves another purpose, if you are using an oil based stain and the final top coat will also be an oil (mineral spitit) based varnish. Because shellac is alcohol based, it helps to lock down the stain so that as you apply top coat the solvents in it don't soften the stain and move it around.

   Personally, I seldom use the pre-stain shellac wash coat technique, opting instead to use one of the more mellow figured, white pines (preferably eastern white). Although I do almost always apply a shellac barrier coat after the stain is applied...both for the above mentioned reasons and also because shellac is a heavy bodied finish that dries quickly...shortening the time it takes to achieve a good, deep, smooth finish.

   I never use the newer water based varnishes. Although, because they aren't formulated with mineral spirits, perhaps they might seal in the wood's resins without the need of a shellac barrier coat...but I just can't stand the milky, translucence they present when applied, or the more plastic look they seem to have once they cure.

   Sorry to be so wordy, but I hope this helps.  

1. 
   Calendyr | Mar 14, 2004 11:12pm | #2

   It does. Thank you.

   I am not sure I understand how the stain gets through the shellac to stain the wood though. I thought the shellac would create a barrier the stain could not penetrate. I will try it on a piece of scrapwood to see how it works out.

   The shellac I purchased is 2 lbs... I do not have any denatured alcool to cut it. I hope it will not be too heavy.

   This is my first project, I am making a table and after reading 3 books I am sure the top with be a pain and I will most likelly have to re-make it. I purchased pre-glued pine boards to make a 16 and 20 inches while boards. They are sold as ready made shelves. Anyhow when I purchased the wood to make the project I knew nothing about fine woodworking. Now that I have read a bit I realise the boards will not be stable. The planks have heavy rings in them and they are running in different directions from one plank to the next. I am afraid this will most likelly create a wave effect (warp). I just hope that once assembled it will not be too bad, but I expect I will have to re-do the top with plywood sometime in the future.

   Thank you for the help, I tend to be long winded as well so I do not mind it one bit ;)

1. 
   jonsherryl | Mar 15, 2004 02:07am | #3

   Hold the works there Galendyr. DO NOT put 2LB cut on that raw table top. Go get some alcohol at the hardware store and dilute the shellac by at least 1:1, preferably about two parts alcohol to one part 2LB cut shellac. If you put the shellac on full strength, it will seal the wood so thoroughly you won't be able to stain it any darker than honey blonde...And being as this is your first go-round with this technique, experiment on some scraps all the way through your finishing strategy. In other words, try various strengths of shellac, vary the amount you sand the surface on each sample, then apply the stain and see what you get.

   As for the risk that the top will warp because the glue-up wasn't done with alternating directions of the annual rings on the end grain (or was it?)...Anyway, I don't think it's a sure thing you'll have a problem resulting from grain direction. Pine is a relatively stable wood and if you seal both the top and underside of the table real well, you might just dodge the bullet this time.

   Edited 3/14/2004 7:21 pm ET by Jon Arno

1. 
   Bonka | Mar 15, 2004 04:03am | #4

   I have used diluted hide glue with great rusults.  I bought it from Hiland Hdw.  It is premixed and I was delighted with the results.  It has to dry about 24 hrs then sanded.  The end grain looked the same as the rest of the wood and it was even over the whole piece.  Ofcourse one cannot use water based stains, etc. with it.

   Jerry

1. 
   Calendyr | Mar 15, 2004 06:18pm | #5

   Yes I did some tests yesterday and the stain did not penetrate much.  Ended up with a very light color even though the color is dark mahogany.

   I will have to make a stop at the hardware store on my way home to get enough product to cut to 1:1 or more.  Also useful for cleaning the brush afterwards ;)

   Actually the wood used have alternating end grain pattern.  So from your comment I guess that is what is supposed to be done.  Next time I will have a look at end grain to get better quality wood. 

2. 
   OneofmanyBobs | Mar 17, 2004 04:46pm | #9

   Household ammonia is an excellent brush cleaner for shellac.  But, I rarely clean mine totally.  Just rinse a little in alcohol, shape the brush and let it dry.  keeps the shape better for a longer time.  Soak in shellac or alcohol before use until the brush is soft.

3. 
   Calendyr | Mar 17, 2004 07:45pm | #10

   I live in Montreal (Quebec).  I am not sure what kind of pine it is that I am using.  I am not far enough into woodworking to be able to tell species apart.  Wood most likelly comes from around here, so what ever grows in Eastern Canada is most likelly what I have.

   I purchased the wood at Reno-Depot which is similar to Home Hardware.  I doubt it is prime quality wood, then again I have never seens the different qualities of wood side by side.  My top pannel has a lot of knots into it, that is what makes me think it is not #1 wood.  Also the rings in the end grain are very pronounced, having almost half of a circle.  My guess is that wood will bend and twist a lot... time will tell.

   Anyhow, I have never mixed shellac...  I was unable to find it in flake form at home hardware... they only sold the pre-diluted kind.  I know that stuff has a short shelf life so I hope the one I purchased will work well.

   I think I will just stain the wood as usual and apply a coat of shellac over the stain to seal the wood.  This will prevent the light color.  The base of the table is already done and I would hate for the top to be much lighter than the base.  I used mahogany red, so it is quite dark.  If color is uneven well... so what ;)  I am not a pro yet so I think I am allowed to have some un-even color on my first project hehehe

   I am simply worried about the knots breaking, many of them are the embeded kind that tends to fall off with time.  I hope shellac will prevent that.  Also I would hate to have leaks through the finish and I know shellac will prevent this.

   I completed my first pannel glue-up yesterday.  Came out ok.  But the planing did not... how the heck do you plane wood with knots in it???  Now I know what it means to hit a knot ;) hehehe  The blade would stop completelly anytime I hit one.  There must be a way to do this but I think I will simply sand with very coase to very fine sandpaper.  But that should be an other post entirelly ;)

2. 
   LeeEschen | Mar 16, 2004 10:20am | #6

   Hi Jon,

   In this area (SW Oregon), at least, most pine available commercially is actually sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) or pondorosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), both of which are have a tendency to splotchiness when stained rather than the early/late wood banding. I recently did a beam casing which gave me some problems. A 1# cut of shellac didn't let even a light stain (about honey maple) show very much darkening. I wound up using Minwax's Stain Conditioner which gave a bit better results, but I was not truly happy with the results.

   Would you have any suggestions for future reference?

   BTW, my pastor's son, Daniel (22), recently tried making his first mountain dulcimer and used some of my red oak for the fretboard. I haven't seen it yet, but he says it looks beautiful. I guess I'm going to have take the plunge pretty soon.

   --

   Lee in Cave Junction, Oregon;

   Gateway to the Oregon Caves

1. 
   jonsherryl | Mar 16, 2004 04:53pm | #7

   Lee, sugar pine is a white pine and a joy to work with, given it's pleasant scent and very uniform, waxy texture. With that said, though, I don't use it when counterfeiting Early American furniture styles. The dark resin canals are a dead give away that it's not the traditional species for that style.

   When I first started making pine furniture back in the 1950s, the only two pines readily available at lumber yards here in Michigan were western white pine (AKA; Idaho White Pine, Pinus monticola) and ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa, sometimes mixed with lodgepole; Pinus contorta). Michigan's once bountiful supply of eastern white pine had been wiped out about 50 years prior to then and everything was coming in from the West. It was indeed an imperfect world for my purposes. The Idaho was generally #2 & better, far too "nice", i.e., not knotty enough...and the ponderosa, while readily available in a plenty knotty #3 & worse, was kiln dried in the slam-bam fashion prescribed for roof boards...So, in my younger years, I got a lot of practice trying to doctor up pine stock that was less than ideal.

   Fortunately, over the past couple of decades, the pineries in the East (New England, eastern Canada and the Great Lakes region) have come back into at least limited production and eastern white pine (Pinus strobus, AKA Northern White Pine) is now much easier to find in the lower grades. In fact, it's often the cheapest 1" pine you can find...so, happy days are here again.

   ---

   As for shellac wash coats, I'd agree that a 1LB cut is borderline too heavy, unless you want a light fruitwood color. Even thinner cuts of shellac drastically limit how dark you can stain the wood and it often requires that you resort to adding a little pigment to the top coat varnish in order to darken the final finish. I haven't used the commercial sanding sealers and/or conditioners, being as I grew up with using shellac for this purpose and am comfortable with it. In fact, I use shellac in so many ways I don't know how I'd get along without it...and I'm puzzled by how younger woodworkers seem to dismiss it as old fashioned and outmoded.

   ---

   Happy to hear you're thinking about getting into dulcimer making. It's a great hobby for those on the cusp of advanced senility, but still able to muster brief moments of concentration and coordination. Very little strenuous labor involved...Sort of like turning, except you get longer beer breaks while the glue is drying.

   One warning, though: once you enter the realm of dulcimer making, it gets to be downrite addictive. You keep telling yourself the next one will be perfect...and it never is.         

2. 
   stancalow | Mar 17, 2004 05:02am | #8

   Calendyr

   No one addressed one of your original questions.  What color are you trying to get to?   I have added alcohol-soluble (powdered) stain to shellac to change the color a few times, while taking advantage of the sealing properties of shellac.  It worked fine, although admittedly, only on some small, lightly used pieces.   Maybe someone has a reason why this is not a good idea. 

   Or you could try to work with some of the darker orange or garnet colored shellac too, if you are trying for a warmer tone.  I use the dry shellac flakes from Homestead finishing, as well as their dye (transfast?) but similar is available from other sources. 

   If you mix dye with shellac, make sure you make up a big enough batch for your whole project, as it is hard to rematch the tone without precise measurement.